This book explores the causes and trends of the current crisis of the domination system in the Arab world. The Member President of the World Forum for Alternatives invites its authors —outstanding academics from the region— to present an approach to the dynamics of social movements, the challenges of an alternative regional integration, political Islam, and the always complex relationships between the Arab world and Europe.

"We the Cubans" by Guillermo Rodríguez Rivera is a catchy and accurate portrait of the essence of Cuban identity. The significance of being an Island; the inescapable relationship between history, society, and politics; the mix of races, religions, and cultures are analyzed here—not from an academic or traditional perspective, but from a more personal approach.

Without any doubt "Raining over Havana" by Julio Travieso Serrano is a faithful portrait of Cuban life in the 1990's. Here we may find characters who move on the margins of Havana society: prostitutes, pimps, procurers, all of them marked by pain and despair but, at the same time, full of love, passion, humor and irony, and always fighting to subsist. Their existential conflicts and psychology have been carefully delineated by the author. Havana, dirty, chaotic, but always beautiful, impregnated by magic and mystery, could well be the main character of this novel that will definitely entrap readers, because from its initial pages they will want to know whether pain or love, life or death triumphs.

Esta última nos propone, desde su título, el desafío de una mirada introspectiva. Más que un reparto de trabajadores habaneros, Alamar es, en esta novela, una alegoría cubana con la cual el autor persevera en su estilo aglutinador de la realidad, procurando mostrárnosla en su compleja amalgama y con un lenguaje polifónico en que la diversidad cultural de nuestro pueblo se revela en su consistente unidad. Sin ser arquetípicos ni caricaturescos, los personajes ilustran con sus nombres, apariencias y conductas, algunos aspectos de la variopinta sociedad de la isla, de tal forma que en ellos es posible que identifiquemos a algunos vecinos y nos reconozcamos nosotros mismos.

While the Arab uprisings have overturned the idea of Arab "exceptionalism," or the acceptance of authoritarianism, better analysis of authoritarianism’s resilience in pre- and post-uprising scenarios is still needed. Modern Middle East Authoritarianism: Roots, Ramifications, and Crisis undertakes this task by addressing not only the mechanisms that allowed Middle Eastern regimes to survive and adapt for decades, but also the obstacles that certain countries face in their current transition to democracy. This volume analyzes the role of ruling elites, Islamists, and others, as well as variables such as bureaucracy, patronage, the strength of security apparatuses, and ideological legitimacy to ascertain regimes’ life expectancies and these factors’ post-uprisings repercussions. Discussing not only the paradigms through which the region has been analyzed, but also providing in-depth case studies of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Iran, the authors arrive at critical conclusions about dictatorship and possibilities for its transformation. Employing diverse research methods, including interviews, participant observation, and theoretical discussions of authoritarianism and political transition, this book is essential reading for scholars of Middle East Studies, Islamic Studies and those with an interest in the governance and politics of the Middle East.

French President Charles de Gaulle (1958-1969) has consistently fascinated contemporaries and historians. His vision_conceived out of national interest_of uniting Europe under French leadership and overcoming the Cold War still remains relevant and appealing. De Gaulle's towering personality and his challenge to US hegemony in the Cold War have inspired a vast number of political biographies and analyses of the foreign policies of the Fifth Republic mostly from French or US angle. In contrast, this book serves to rediscover de Gaulle's global policies how they changed the Cold War. Offering truly global perspectives on France's approach to the world during de Gaulle's presidency, the 13 well-matched essays by leading experts in the field tap into newly available sources drawn from US, European, Asian, African and Latin American archives. Together, the contributions integrate previously neglected regions, actors and topics with more familiar and newly approached phenomena into a global picture of the General's international policy-making. The volume at hand is an example of how cutting-edge research benefits from multipolar and multi-archival approaches and from attention to big, middle and smaller powers as well as institutions.

From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia, a piercing account of how the contemporary Arab world came to be riven by catastrophe since the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq. In 2011, a series of anti-government uprisings shook the Middle East and North Africa in what would become known as the Arab Spring. Few could predict that these convulsions, initially hailed in the West as a triumph of democracy, would give way to brutal civil war, the terrors of the Islamic State, and a global refugee crisis. But, as New York Times bestselling author Scott Anderson shows, the seeds of catastrophe had been sown long before. In this gripping account, Anderson examines the myriad complex causes of the region’s profound unraveling, tracing the ideological conflicts of the present to their origins in the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 and beyond. From this investigation emerges a rare view into a land in upheaval through the eyes of six individuals—the matriarch of a dissident Egyptian family; a Libyan Air Force cadet with divided loyalties; a Kurdish physician from a prominent warrior clan; a Syrian university student caught in civil war; an Iraqi activist for women’s rights; and an Iraqi day laborer-turned-ISIS fighter. A probing and insightful work of reportage, Fractured Lands offers a penetrating portrait of the contemporary Arab world and brings the stunning realities of an unprecedented geopolitical tragedy into crystalline focus.